Initial Market Assessment : Country Scoping Note--Haiti
With the Caribbean Catastrophe Insurance Facility (CCRIF), the Micro-insurance Catastrophe Risk Organization (MiCRO), and the Alternative Insurance Company (AIC), Haiti has world champions of catastrophe insurance at the macro and micro level. None...
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| Language: | English en_US |
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Washington, DC
2015
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/07/24773496/initial-market-assessment-country-scoping-note-haiti http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22431 |
| Summary: | With the Caribbean Catastrophe Insurance
Facility (CCRIF), the Micro-insurance Catastrophe Risk
Organization (MiCRO), and the Alternative Insurance Company
(AIC), Haiti has world champions of catastrophe insurance at
the macro and micro level. Nonetheless, there are various
opportunities to help scale up the impact they currently
have. The CCRIF has found it more difficult than anticipated
to adapt its excess rainfall model to Haiti, and the
existing earthquake and tropical cyclone cover could be
increased meaningfully by paying higher premium. AIC has
substantially promoted property micro-insurance in their
partnership with Fonkoze, and wants to reach larger
populations with other products and additional distribution
partnerships. One way to do this might be to retail a
catastrophe property insurance based on the CCRIF
parameters. The insurance sector in Haiti, however, is
generally weak and poorly supervised. Ongoing projects by
the development partners are addressing this but advance
slowly, and could benefit from more focus, urgency and top
level support. Possible incentives could be the outlook to
insure public assets, which deserves to be discussed with
the government and would provide a powerful demonstration
case. Possibilities for mandatory catastrophe insurance like
in Turkey should also be considered. Both require a strong
professional insurance sector. A further motivation for
strengthening the insurance sector is the untapped potential
for agriculture (index) insurance that has already attracted
projects. Social protection has become a priority of the
government, and can be further strengthened with
market-mediated insurance mechanisms, like for example cash
transfers that increase in amount or outreach based on
specific populations’ needs approximated by disaster loss
indices. Haiti can benefit from a growing body of evidence
that shows how public private partnerships and the use of
insurance related principles benefit low income households. |
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